dangerous words

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

I was in Long Beach in 2012 when Nick Hanauer gave his, “It’s absolute bullshit that the rich are job creators” TED talk. I was so eager to share it with co-workers and friends, I checked the TED site every day waiting for them to post it. I gave up after six months

It eventually showed up on YouTube but I don’t think TED ever put it on their site or even linked to it. I’m surprised they welcomed him back to the main stage just a couple years later. —@kims

Video: Rich people don’t create jobs

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analog privilege

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Are we headed toward a society of feudal techno-peasants and a small class of the analog-privileged?

The Future is Analog (If You Can Afford It)

The idea of “analog privilege” describes how people at the apex of the social order secure manual overrides from ill-fitting, mass-produced AI products and services. Instead of dealing with one-size-fits-all AI systems, they mobilize their economic or social capital to get special personalized treatment. In the register of tailor-made clothes and ordering off menu, analog privilege spares elites from the reductive, deterministic and simplistic downsides of AI systems. —Maroussia Lévesque

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top tools 2024

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Once again Jane Hart is asking, “What are the most popular digital tools for learning and why?” in the 18th Annual Top Tools for Learning survey. Voting ends on 30 August.

My tools have not changed much since last year. I am not using social bookmarks much any more, so Diigo did not make the list. It’s interesting that social bookmarking was my #3 tool in 2012, and how little I use it now.

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assistive technology

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Donald Clark has posted about how many people are using AI as assistive technology.

Time and time again, someone with dyslexia, or with a son or daughter with dyslexia, came up to me to discuss how AI had helped them. They describe the troubles they had in an educational system that is obsessed with text. Honestly, I can’t tell you how often I’ve had these conversations. —Plan B: 2024-08-15

Donald goes on to cite several types of assistive technology.

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fields of knowledge

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Stay in your lane. Stick to your knitting. These are perhaps the worst cliché words of advice anyone can give in our interconnected, networked world.

For much of history, particularly since The Enlightenment, our societies have been quite adept at creating classifications and creating fields of work and study.

At the end of the day, fields represent a specific kind of research machinery: a collection of rallying cries, norms, funders, and bureaucratic arrangements that are designed to output new insights about the world at large. Fields rise and fall on the strength of their ability to deliver knowledge and useful ideas. Researchers – particularly the good ones – coalesce around productive fields because they are also the most effective engines for pursuing the questions they want to pursue. At the end of the day, that is what matters. —Field Essentialism

Fields are often created to be useful but they can also be used for power and control. I remember visiting the Apartheid Museum in South Africa and one of the rooms showed all the laws around race that had been in place during the apartheid regime. These started as a few laws but more kept being added as there was no way to make a complex field merely complicated.

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a rude awakening

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“It might be down to the time of year; it’s always quieter in the summer months but it feels a bit different right now.

Firstly, it feels like there has been a BIG pause because of ChatGPT and other LLMs. It feels like people are still getting their heads round what they can do, their effectiveness, quality, etc. And when they do look at it, they don’t ‘get’ how they’ll use it.” —Andrew Jacobs 2024-08-09

I have witnessed this same malaise in the business world for the past year. If it’s not an AI initiative, it does not get any attention. The bad and the ugly aspects of this new flavour of machine learning are dominating the IT sector and all it touches. Here are some recent examples shared in our community of practice.

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we fight, they lose

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

Note: Regular readers may have noticed that my blog posts are rather infrequent at this time. I am taking a break from blogging through the Summer and intend to be back this Autumn. There are over 3,500 older posts always available to peruse here.

“Everyone is tired because individually we’re trying to do all the things that can only really be achieved by communal living.” via @gemelliz

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” —John Kenneth Galbraith (2002)

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work and learning 2024

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Work is constantly evolving but technological and social changes are accelerating certain aspects of work. Working from anywhere has exploded since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and does not look like it will disappear. The digital workplace requires unique skills in collaborating in distributed teams and cooperating in knowledge networks.

The most recent technology to influence how work gets done is artificial intelligence — specifically generative large language multi-modal models (GLM). The rate at which these new technologies are being integrated requires agile sensemaking from workers adapting to the changing human-machine work interface. It is highly likely that the pace of change will continue and even accelerate.

While we cannot predict the future of work or know how GLMs will develop, we can assess what human meta-skills are necessary to individually and collectively understand working with smart machines. There are three meta-skills that can help us adapt to a future of work with smart machines.

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ITA Jay Cross Award 2024

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The Internet Time Alliance Memorial Award in memory of Jay Cross is presented to a workplace learning professional who has contributed in positive ways to the field of Informal Learning and is reflective of Jay’s lifetime of work.

Recipients champion workplace and social learning practices inside their organization and/or on the wider stage. They share their work in public and often challenge conventional wisdom. The Award is given to professionals who continuously welcome challenges at the cutting edge of their expertise and are convincing and effective advocates of a humanistic approach to workplace learning and performance.

We announce the award on 5 July, Jay’s birthday.

Following his death in November 2015, the partners of the Internet Time Alliance — Jane Hart, Charles Jennings, Clark Quinn, and myself — resolved to continue Jay’s work. Jay Cross was a deep thinker and a man of many talents, never resting on his past accomplishments, and this award is one way to keep pushing our professional fields and industries to find new and better ways to learn and work.

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understand and speak up

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On the last Friday of each month I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

Note: Regular readers may have noticed that my blog posts are rather infrequent at this time. I am taking a break from blogging through the Summer and intend to be back this Autumn. There are over 3,500 older posts always available to peruse here.

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” —Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD)

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